


Pause it Play

by Damalia (Achrya)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Cat/Human Hybrids, Dark, Dehumanization, Depression, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Injury, Language, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Ownership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-24 21:05:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6166837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hybrids are supposed to be the perfect companions. All the unconditional love of a pet but with just enough human to make care easy, with designer features and temperament breeding. There may be some small issues but most people agree that a few dark spots don’t stop hybrids from being one of the best things to ever happen to humanity.</p><p>Marco dislikes people who own hybrids. He hates the whole idea, actually, and has never wanted a hybrid of his own. But fate has other ideas and drops Jean, an illegal omega hybrid with no fondness for humans, into his lap. Stuck between a bunch of terrible options, including letting Jean be put down, what can he do but keep him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Is It Yours?

**Author's Note:**

> *blank look* I've got nothing. 
> 
> Warnings: ABO and some of the darker tropes associated with it. Non-con, dub-con, non-consensual drug use, slavery...just a shit ton of unpleasantness. Mostly in the past, the story starts after the worst has happened. Also a bunch of human rights issues, sentient beings being kept as pets, casual discussion of people being put down and/or sterilized.  This world is not a nice place/kind of a dystopia.

 

Marco was having a hell of a night. No, that didn’t do it justice at all. He was having a night out of some sort of surreal not Watch approved movie. He’d almost gotten beat up, just managed to escape his first citations, and was out in what was supposed to be the worst storm in a decade holding a cat hybrid who’d tried to claw off his face.

Stuff like that didn’t happen to him normally. Oh sure, he got in a little trouble now and again but...this was not a little trouble.  

Marco liked to think he was, basically, a good person. Not saintly, not ‘great’, but more or less good. Kind of boring according to most people he knew. He went to work, a glamorous job working intake for the ER of the nearby hospital, and he tried to do right by the people who crossed his path. He helped out his landlady, a widower, whenever she asked, was the go to designated driver and his couch had been surfed many times by friends when they needed a place to crash for a while. 

He did, at times, stick his nose where it probably didn’t belong. He just couldn’t stand the idea of someone being in trouble or hurt when he could do something and so he had, against the better judgement of his friends and family, waded into many a bar fight, the middle of a screaming match between partners, and other things of that nature in the name of helping people. 

His mother had clucked at him, calling him a ‘caveman’, while cleaning up cuts and bruises many times. The prevailing theory was that it was some kind of quirk of alpha biology, an instinct to protect and save even at risk to himself, that made him do the things he did. 

Armin was of the theory that it was a trait that had died out because being so selfless probably got people killed. Armin had a certain gift for bringing down an entire room with just a few words so Marco tried not to take his words too much to heart. 

Marco preferred to believe that most people if given the chance to help someone else would take it. He liked to think he wasn’t that much of an outlier really and that most people, like him, were basically good. 

Of course the world liked to prove him wrong more often than it proved him right and the night he met Jean was no exception. 

He was cutting through the park like he normally did after work, frowning up at the sky when thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. He didn’t think he was going to get caught in the rain but the incoming storm promised to be a bad one and he hadn’t had a chance to stop at the store and make sure he was prepared for the power on his block being diverted like it always was in bad weather.  

It wasn’t that late yet, he’d actually gotten out on time for a change of page, but it was creeping towards winter and the sun was already on the edge of the horizon, a strip of orange and pink on a sky of purple and gray. The local Watch would start making their rounds soon and his permit to be in the park after sundown wasn’t updated. He hadn’t had time to do it because he was working longer shifts to help save up for the holidays but he also didn’t want to walk around the park to get from the bus stop to his apartment. Cutting through turned a thirty minute walk into a roughly ten minute one. 

He was passing past a clump of perfectly uniform trees and grass cut to regulation with artfully placed bushes lining the cobblestone path when he heard the meaty sound of flesh striking flesh. A muffled yowl followed on the heels of the noise. 

He barely thought about what he was doing when he veered off the path and into the trees, paying no heed to the ‘Stay Off Of the Grass or Be Fined’ sign posted alongside the bushes. 

“Fuck man just...hold it better. Fucking Watchers are gonna be out soon.” 

“You aren’t the one with a clawed up hand!” 

The frantically hissed words helped guide him through the trees. The designated green areas in the park weren’t that big but the lack of lights and the stars being obscured by the thick cloud cover made it so he didn’t realize he’d found what he was looking for until he’d practically stumbled over it. 

And then there was a moment of stunned disbelief and not just on his part. Three pairs of stunned eyes locked on him and for a heartbeat there was only a wet choking sound breaking the stunned silence. 

There were three men, other alphas judging by the cloying musky scent hanging tainting the air; one on his feet standing slightly to the side, one on his knees, and one leaning against a tree. Between the one of his knees and the one propped against the tree was another person-A Hybrid his brain supplied when he noticed large triangular ears- down on their knees. Their arms were pulled behind them, restrained by the alpha practically plastered against their back. There was a hand on the hybrid’s head, resting between the ears, holding them in place in front of the standing alpha’s crotch. 

No one moved or spoke and in another set of circumstances all the gobsmacked expressions might have been comedic. 

Someone, maybe the alpha against the tree since he was standing up straight and releasing the grip he had on the hybrid, growled. The hybrid’s head fell forward and a painful hacking noise rang out. The alpha standing to the side echoed the noise and moved like he was a second away from rushing him. 

“How about,” The first alpha’s voice was dripping with threat. “You turn the fuck around.”

It was a command, not a request. That would have been enough for most alphas to attack, they didn't respond well to be ordered around, but Marco resisted the urge. He could feel the violence in the air; a pack of alphas, even a small one, weren’t likely to just back down and hand over their prize without a fight. If they were keyed up enough, and they smelled like they were, a fight would just make things that much better for them, get the blood pumping while their primal brains delighted in taking out a threat.  

Marco’s brain worked, trying to decide how badly he was about to get his ass kicked exactly. Three against one were not good odds at the best of times but throw in alpha hormones and what was going to read as a challenge for their 'prize' and suddenly it was pretty far from the best of times but... 

Leaving wasn’t an option.

Maybe the hybrid would be able to get away in the meantime.  

The third alpha stood and he was huge, tall and thickly built with fists roughly the size of Marco’s head. Menace radiated from him. 

His mother had always said trying to help everyone was going to land him in a potentially deadly situation one day and it looked like this was that day. 

A beam of light sliced through the darkness. “Hey! Can’t you read the signs?” 

The Watch. 

The light was joined by another; they bobbed in the air, sweeping over them, and the sound of feet coming towards them followed.

The tension in the air snapped. The reaction was immediate. The other alphas seemed to jerk back in unison then exchange looks before, with snarls and snapping teeth, running in the opposite direction the voice had come from. Marco watched them melt into the trees, scarcely able to believe he was going to get out the situation with all of his teeth still in his mouth. 

Then again it was one thing to beat the snot out of some stupid alpha but something else completely to mess around with the Watch. Watch Officers had the authority to dish out punishments, harsh ones, right on the spot as they saw fit. They were judge, jury, and sometimes executioner and there was no way to challenge them. 

Not that anyone would be killed for being on the grass or-his gaze went down to the hybrid then right back up as bile tried to push up the back of his throat- but if they already had criminal records who knew what might happen?

Marco didn’t have a record so running away didn’t really occur to him. The officers burst into the small clearing a few seconds after the other alphas vanished; a man and a woman in the customary white pants and tan jackets, shock batons holstered at their sides. The woman gave Marco a quick once over, nose wrinkling in disgust, then jerked her head towards her partner. 

“This is all you Mar. Going after the others.”

"Aww, Hitch." 

She didn’t give any indication she'd heard, already heading back into the trees. The man sighed then, regarding Marco with tired eyes, pulled out a datapad.

“Identification?” Marco handed it over to be scanned. There was a noise behind him and movement from his corner of his eyes; the hybrid. The Watch officer saw it as well and pointed without actually looking in the hybrid’s direction. “That yours?” 

Marco blinked and, in spite of not wanting to look found himself doing just that. The hybrid had risen up to a half crouch, attention completely on the officer. Marco wasn’t an expert in hybrids in any sense of the word but he knew people. Working in the ER had brought him into contact with all sorts of people in all sorts of situations and he’d seen a lot people at what was effectively their worse. It was true that hybrids weren’t strictly ‘people’, not really, but there was no mistaking fear and panic. 

The hybrid was regarding the officer like he was some kind of monster who might attack at any moment, teeth bared like a threat but their eyes were wide and glassy, pupils stretched, darting around as if in search of an exit. 

Marco knew what ‘fight or flight’ looked like very well. If he had a dollar for every time he’d stared into the eyes of someone who looked five seconds from bolting or completely losing it he’d be able to take a nice vacation actually. 

Not that a vacation built on the trauma of others would be that nice. 

“Hello?” The officer asked, mouth pressing into an impatient line. “Is it yours or do I need to call animal control?”

Marco didn’t like hybrids. He’d never had a bad experience or anything he just didn’t understand the point of combining animal and human DNA to grow so called perfect companions for humans. 

He understood they were supposed to be simple minded and predisposed to being happiest when pleasing their human and would be unable to function without owners but it still looked a lot like people walking other people around on leashes to him. He was in the minority in that opinion, hybrids had been around long enough that the seventh generation had just been released (now with designer hair and eye colors and temperament and behavior breeding.)  

He didn’t want a hybrid. He knew lots of people with them, most of his friends and some of his siblings even, but he just brushed it aside when they told him he would benefit from having one. He would just get a cat if he wanted a cat and he already had human friends. 

The right thing to do would be to explain the situation and let the officer take the hybrid away to a shelter. They were collarless and markless but maybe someone would adopt-

But no. A hybrid abused by humans wouldn’t be adopted out would it? It would have to disclosed to all potential owners and who would want a used companion? They were supposed to be fun and useful, not work. 

The hybrid would probably sit in a small cage until a vet assessed the situation and decided there was no point in keeping a product no one wanted alive.

There were no kill shelters but the Watch wasn’t associated with them so they wouldn’t waste their time with that. 

Not that something like that was his problem but who was he kidding, he could never just stand by while something like that happened, he couldn’t-

Lightening flashed and thunder boomed as the sky opened up and rain came screaming down. Hard. There was no drizzle or ramp up; one moment there was nothing and the next water was pounding down on them. 

The officer swore then, yanking the hood of his jacket up, all but threw Marco’s ID back at him. “Nevermind! Just get the hell out of here and update your park permissions! I’m not standing out in this to issue a grass citation.” The last part wasn’t said so much to Marco as it was to the world at large. 

The officer stomped off, still grumbling loudly as thunder sounded again. A whimper drew his attention back to the hybrid. It was shaking, teeth chattering already. It looked wretched, face tear streaked and dirty, hair matted, tangled, and only getting worse as the rain came down, body thin and just as dirty as it’s face. Bruises here and there, though how many and how bad was hard to tell in the dark and with how they were crouched and curled in on themselves. 

Probably terrified not to mention freezing. Even without the rain, which had already soaked Marco’s hair, half blinding him as it flopped into his face, and was pounding down on his coat (He was grateful he’d listened to the weather suggestion and had put his raincoat on), it had been a chilly day. 

He took a step towards the hybrid, hand up in what he hoped was a soothing gesture, and pitched his voice low. Animals liked that didn’t they? He’d never had any pets or hybrids around growing up; with six kids the last thing his parents had wanted to deal with was more mouths to feed. 

He had experience with trauma victims, had to for the job, but he wasn’t sure how much of that would cross over and it had never been like this. He longed for the bright lights and sterile halls of the hospital. 

“Hey. There. Um. Maybe you could...um. I can take you somewhere? Out of the rain.” Triangular ears flattened against the hybrids skull and it hissed. “Nono, don’t do that. My house is Fuck!”

He’d managed to edge close enough that he could have reached out for the hybrid. Which meant the same was true for it. It lunged forward, hands stretching for his face. Marco ducked away but not fast enough to escape having his cheek scratched at. He grabbed the hybrid’s arms, forcing them down to its side, before a follow up blow could come.

It snapped, hissing again and thrashed, managing to kick out at him a few times and dig nails into his wrist and the back of his hands. The attack didn’t last long; one moment he was holding the hybrid out as far from himself as he could while they yowled and snapped and the next the hybrid’s face went slack. The thin body went completely limp as amber eyes rolled back. 

Marco almost let go in surprise but, at the last moment, hauled the hybrid closer and wrapped one arm around a surprisingly thin waist to keep it from flopping down into the grass and mud. 

And just like that he had an armful of unconscious hybrid in the middle of a downpour.

He could almost hear his mother’s exasperated clucking. 

He shifted the hybrids weight, trying to decide if he thought he could carry it somewhere-not that he had a lot of choice- when something tickled his nose. It was faint, buried under sweat and dirt and alpha stink but

Omega. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *twiddles fingers* So. Again. This story is heavy in the dehumanization (as noted in the total disregard the officers have for hybrid who has clearly been hurt) Even Marco is doing it at this point. The world is a messed up place and not just on the treatment of hybrids front. But especially there. 
> 
> Anywho. ...tell me what you think. I am...idk. Sketchy about this. Not my usual fare.


	2. Bringing Your New Kitten Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Victim blaming but in a societal sense, not that Marco necessarily believes those things, in this chapter as well as some Jean PoV which is...different. And distressing? So again, mind your warnings.

Gettng the hybrid back to his apartment wasn’t what he would call a pleasant experience. The wind was strong, not just causing him to slip on occasion but making the rain sting his face and eyes as he tried to push through it.

On the upside the streets were mostly empty, everyone with sense already home or resolved to stay wherever they were at rather than brave what was supposed to be the worst storm in years. The few people he did see were too busy to pay any attention to him or the hybrid he was carrying.

He’d given up his coat to wrap it in, figuring that the pale and frail hybrid needed what little protection it would offer more than he would. They were light, shockingly so, and as concerning as that was Marco was grateful that he wasn’t trying to lug someone heavy around.

Once inside he set the hybrid on his couch, uncaring about how wet his furniture would end up, and quickly stripped out of his own clothing. His skin was red and near raw in some spots from where his clothing had been stuck and rubbing against it and getting out of the stuff was an exercise in frustration.

He rushed it, fingers clumsy and freezing, because the hybrid was trembling on his couch and needed to be dried and warmed up desperately. He would have liked to focus on that first, wanted to, but knew he wouldn’t be much good having dragged a good chunk of the rain inside, forming puddles everywhere he stood. He toweled the worst of the rain off and re-dressed in record time then returned to his small living room.

His apartment was the standard single person Mid-Class setup. A square that had a sliding screen about 60% of the way back, sectioning off the back into a bedroom. The front section had a small eat-in kitchen to the right, a bathroom to the left and the rest was an open area for the living room. It wasn’t big but it didn’t need to be. Marco didn’t have a lot of stuff to his name; after years sharing a bedroom and just about everything else with all of his siblings he was well acquainted with living light.  

He turned on the heat, silently mourning his energy ration, and lit some candles before turning his attention to the hybrid on his couch.

The heavy smell of the other alphas was gone, carried away by the rain, and he could think a little clearer without it setting his teeth on edge. He was just now about the hybrid because all there was left on them was the distinct scent of omega. A little sweet, a little like grass and and pine, and a lot like something that shouldn’t even exist. When hybrids had first become available, years before Marco had been born, they’d come in the same dynamics as humans but problems had arisen. Alpha hybrids were prone to being hard to manage and unruly, wanting to dominate even their owners and even fighting with humans. Omega hybrids, however, were the real dark spot on the history of hybrids.

Supposedly they were sex crazed beasts, temptress’ who had deliberately gone out of their way to seduce their owners, sowing sin and corruption. Nothing ruined a family like finding out your partner had bred the hybrid or catching your kid screwing the family pet, or so the lewd version of the history went.

The second generation of hybrids had been rolled out as a ‘correction’; anyone with an alpha or omega bet had been encouraged to bring in their ‘defective’ product to have it put down and then replaced with a beta. Since then all hybrids were betas and were sterilized as soon as possible. The companies in the hybrid business all insisted that all problems posed by alpha and omega hybrids had been corrected. No longer would aggression or sexualization be an issue.  

There was no legal breeder in the world who would purposefully make an omega hybrid let alone who who seemed to be...intact.

The scent glands, at least, were there and seemed to work just fine.

There was just no reason for such a thing to exist that he could think of.

Or, he supposed, there was a reason-his mind flashed back to the park against his will and he had to grit his teeth against the spike of nausea that came with it-but he didn’t want to think someone had made a hybrid for that purpose.

Besides this hybrid didn’t look much like someone interested in, or capable of, seduction.

They were shaking, badly, and their lips looked to be gaining a blueish tint yet their skin was pink and flushed, sweat dotting their forehead.

He frowned but set that aside to worry about later; he had to get them warm and dry then he could worry about other things. He picked up one of his larger towels and carefully moved the hybrid so it was under him, then picked up another to start rubbing over pale skin.

The rain had washed off some of the dirt but the hybrid didn’t look any better for it. The marks Marco had noticed before were more obvious than they had been out in the park; a split lip, broken skin above on eye, finger shaped smudges and scratches along his throat and over his collar bones, dark marks over the ribs and hips.

He hesitated to even look lower let alone do anything there, but after taking a breath to steel himself and control the way his stomach was churning violently, he picked up a clean towel and focused.

He had to bite his tongue at a spike of sickness he felt at the sight of more bruises, overlapping with each other as they traveled from the outside to disappear between the hybrids thighs. He blinked then gently rubbed at the hybrid’s skin, willing them to stay unconscious until he was done. He made short work of it then hastily threw a blanket he’d brought along over the hybrid. He scooped up everything else to drop it in the bathroom to do laundry later.

He lingered there, washing his hands and face, spreading antiseptic cream on the places he’d been clawed, toweling his hair again and wiping away water that had dripped down his neck and back, before finally standing there, staring at the pile of grimey towels.

What was he going to do?

An illegal hybrid was lying on his couch and not just an illegal, bred who knew where by god only know what kind of person with any number of issues or abnormalities since clearly this had been done outside of regulations, but an omega one at that.

He’d thought maybe a runaway who had jumped it’s collar, things like that happened sometimes but they were usually found quickly since a hybrid had no ability to feed and shelter itself, but this was was beyond that.

This was serious.

He needed to call the watch or animal control; if he got caught with an omega hybrid...he didn’t know what would happen actually. Nothing good and probably a lot more than just a grass or out after dark citation.

A serious offense could lose him his job and get him moved down to the lower class areas or sent to a work camp and he was pretty sure having a hybrid who shouldn’t exist counted as serious.

Ironically it was be more serious than what those alphas in the park had done. That was tampering with someone's property at best, and not even that since the hybrid had no mark or collar, and with the knowledge that the hybrid was an omega thrown in…

There were some people who would say that a pack of alphas attacking an omega was just a natural response. In a group like that, coming across an omega whose scent wasn’t suppressed...it was just a recipe for trouble.  Alphas could get into a pheromone loop, feeding off of each other’s lust or aggression until they couldn’t see straight. That was why omegas were expected to suppress their scents, stay indoors when they were most fertile, and move in groups when they weren’t mated.

Alphas couldn’t be expected to fight their nature.

He knew better. His mother had been an alpha and she’d never let that kind of belief have a place in their home. He’d gone into rut, the same as any alpha, and he’d felt the heat and craving and want but he also knew it was not an excuse to hurt someone even if he would have been excused for it.

Not even a hybrid.

Not even an illegal one.

And being afraid of trouble wasn’t an excuse to let someone be hurt either.

He leaned against his sink and sighed; he could no more call animal control then he could have left the hybrid with those other alphas.

A no-kill shelter. He would call around and find a nice one to take the hybrid to when the storm broke. A place like that would keep the hybrid safe and

A loud thud and then a pained whimper jarred him from his thoughts. He inhaled then exhaled slowly before walked back into the living room, going slowly in hopes that when the hybrid saw him they’d be able to tell he wasn’t a threat and avoid another encounter with those claws.

He’d expected...well he wasn’t sure what. But to find the hybrid on the floor, hunched over with one arm clutching it’s stomach like it was in pain while shoving fingers down it’s mouth and gagging wasn’t it.

Was it trying to throw up on his floor?

What the hell?

“Hey! Hey just...stop that. Don’t make yourself sick.” Was this some weird hybrid thing? Maybe just cat hybrids? A hairball? Did that happen?

He needed a book.

The hybrid gave no indication that it had heard him, jabbing its fingers deeper into it’s throat and then making a strangled retching noise.

Marco couldn’t deal with it. They were throwing distress and upset and omega all over the place and even though he knew it was a hybrid, not a human, omega he felt the pull. He surged forward, saw amber eyes flick up towards him in alarm, and reached to stop the hybrid from choking itself or making itself sick, whichever.

It bit him. Surprising blunt teeth just caught his finger tips. He wrenched his hand back quickly enough to not really get caught or hurt, just a grazing sting. He cursed, clutching his hand to his chest in surprise; the hybrid’s eyes clenched shut tight and it turned it’s head, hands going up as if to protect it from an oncoming blow while making a low wailing sound.

Marco’s stomach sank; it thought he was going to hit him.

Jesus christ.

He shuffled back a step, commanding himself to stay there. “You didn’t hurt me. It’s fine. I just don’t want you to make yourself sick.”

The hybrid started making noise, quiet and frantic, and kept its hands up defensively. Marco looked around the room anxiously, trying to think. What could he do about this? Keep talking to him? What was the protocol for patients who were distressed?

Why couldn’t he remember-

It wasn’t making noise it was talking. Not all hybrids talked but enough of them did that it wasn’t a big surprise; it was something that varied based on their owner’s preferences. He’d seen some that were totally non-verbal and some that were very well spoken.

“Inside me, have to get them out. Inside me, have to get them out. Inside inside no don’t don’t don’t.” The words ran together, a high pitched slurring, and the hybrid was shaking again, hard enough that their voice jumped wildly and teeth started to chatter.

Marco blinked, first thought that the hybrid wanted him to get out of the room, then he breathed in sharply as he caught on to the ‘bigger’ picture.

“Oh.”

 

\---

 

He woke up all at once, knowing right away that things were wrong.

Nothing smelled right; the scent of trees, grass, and ‘outside’ that he’d gotten used to the past few weeks were gone and there was-

He was on something soft, something that he was sinking into, but damp with something heavy pressing down on his body. After weeks sleeping in trees and on the ground and his whole life in cages it was enough to have his eyes snapping open into darkness. He could make out some things, darker smudges in the shadows, but without any light to speak of it was impossible to make sense of any of it.

He sucked in a panicked breath, eyes darting around anxiously as he realized he was in a human space, on a human thing.

Human and not just human, alpha human. It was everywhere around him and- On him. It was on him, holding him, around his hips and legs, between them. He moved, pulse quickening,  to get away from what was clinging to him.

He could feel hands, human hands always human hands, on his skin, forcing him down, keeping him there while they pulled him apart and made him burn on the inside.

Not again not again never he couldn’t  

Had to get out.

Had to get free again.

He fell to the floor in a tangle of cloth, landing hard. Pain cut through him, flashing up his back and through his stomach. He whimpered, curling in on himself, and fell back against the soft thing he'd been on top of, eyes slamming shut against tears that burned his eyes.

It was a familiar hurt but that didn’t make it easier to deal with.  

Worse really.

He’d run so this would stop, so the humans couldn’t hurt him anymore but nothing had changed, nothing ever changed, humans were everywhere and they wouldn’t let go.

They even came into his head when he was sleeping to hurt him there.

Like this? Had this hurt been in his sleep again?

Something was wrong with him, he’d been weak and always hot and it hurt to climb out of the trees at night. He was digging through the human’s trash to eat but he could only go out once the sun was done because that’s when the humans went away. When there was sun he had to stay in the trees.

Had to move around so his scent didn’t stay in one spot.

He needed to be stronger so he could go back for the others, make them free too, but he just got weaker. It got hard to think, to want to look for food, to do anything but sleep.

They’d come while he’d been sleeping, pulled him out of the tree.

Should have smelled them coming. Humans like that always smelled so much, got into skin and fur and hair.

Shouldn’t have stayed in that place so long.

Should have fought better.

They’d held him down, used their paws to beat him and kept him from breathing until he’d stopped fighting back.

Given in.

It wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.

It was supposed to be different.

Why wasn’t it different?

Why couldn’t he get away?

It followed him everywhere, the smell and feeling of humans, forcing him open and getting deep inside of him and leaving him to carry it around.

He couldn’t.

Not again.

Had to get it out.

He was on his knees, trying to force himself to throw up like Levi had taught him, when he smelled the human whose scent was all over him.

It was hard because everything smelled of the human, even the air, but he saw the movement and heard something, words that meant nothing because he was in his head like he had to be when humans were near.

Inside of his head it was better, harder for him to hurt.

Let them have their way and then they would leave and then he could be free

Not free

Just waiting for more humans to hurt him again.

His fingers brushed his throat and he gagged, coughed, felt his stomach clench and churn. Thick saliva came up past his hand and pattered onto the floor but it wasn't enough, not when he could still feel them in his mouth and inside of them, so he tried to push deeper. 

The human moved to grab him and, even though he knew it would make things worse, he whipped his head around  to bite. He always felt better when they hurt too. The human reared back, eyes strange in the dancing fire light, and he tensed up waiting for the punishment.

It didn’t come.

“You didn’t hurt me. It’s fine. I just don’t want you to make yourself sick.” The human backed away. The movement and his voice were slow, careful, like the master sometimes was. When the master made him cry and decided to be softer, kinder.

The worst hurt always came after that.

He started crying, couldn’t stop himself from doing it, and apologizing, trying to make this new human who have covered him in his scent as if claiming him understand.

The human shushed him but didn’t come closer.

He didn’t understand what the human was doing, this wasn’t how things worked. It was new and new was bad with humans.

“Please don’t cry. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”

He didn’t want to hurt anymore.

He wanted it to be over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jean will be more Jean like soon. He’s having rough night.


End file.
